I am afraid all of the hullabalou about Glen Beck and the comments he made about president Obama have got me a bit bewildered. I now hear that literally 33 advertisers have pulled ads from his show in response to efforts mostly by a group called Color of Change who organized the protests against Beck.

Now while I wholeheartedly support ANYTHING that might eliminate the propaganda shovelers like Beck from the tube forever, I am afraid all this campaign will probably do is boost his ratings and exposure, and that appears to be exactly what happening.

But I am also a strong proponent of boycotts as a political tool. The problem is, we are boycotting the WRONG THINGS.. Who gives a shit what Glen Beck CALLS Obama? Why is anyone using “Racist” or “Nazi” for that matter, subject to huge public backlash when FLAT OUT LYING, about the things that most affect our daily lives has no penalty at all.

As I understand it, the viewers of Fox news perform abysmally in surveys aimed at assessing the effectiveness of news in imparting information accurately to the public. And the gap is huge, like 30-40% more errors in simple current event questions. So are Fox news viewers just stupid? Certainly many are, but this cannot possibly explain this phenomena. The fact is, FOX NEWS LIES about just about everything, and that is why the fans of Fox news are so ignorant of the truth.

So why is bold faced lying, intentional misrepresentation of facts, and promoting mob behavior NOT grounds for boycotts? Why doesn’t the REAL harm Fox news does to our country not subject them to some kind of backlash? Instead, it’s violations of silly political correctness rules that create the shit storm?

Come on Progressives, that’s the Republican / Conservative game. They wrote those rules and we are playing by them! THEY are the ones who get outraged by ridiculous PC crap like claims of racism. They have effectively framed the discourse AGAIN to their advantage. We have got to stop playing by their rules and start following our own. We need to boycott Fox news for LYING, for example suggesting the health bill had death panels, or Saddam had WMD’s, but not for BS insults. And if you don’t know when they are lying, just watch the Daily Show. John Stewart documents their lies on almost a daily basis..

But most importantly, we have to stop allowing them to frame the rules of engagement. The republicans knowingly and intentionally lie, and the democrats act like they have to prove that the facts are TRUE, so all they do is spend all their time defending the validity of the truth. It is a brilliant strategy on the part of the Republicans and something that has to be stopped. We need to CALL THEM ON THEIR LIES! EVERY DAY! EVERY LIE and BOYCOTT THEM FOR LYING not insults. Call their advertisers and tell them you will never by their products again if they advertise ANYWHERE on Fox News.

Perhaps the same reasoning that makes torture a national concern whereas the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and innocent civilians in a war launched through the outright lies of the Bush Administration to Congress doesn’t get any coverage or concern. Isn’t waging imperial war based on lies one of the main grievances the authors of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence had against the King of England in the first place?

I agree. Their insults might offend public sentiments, but their lies literally kill people. It’d be nice if we had sane priorities – but at least the public has *some* small shreds of decency left. We all know that George W. Bush was able to cause untold disasters throughout this country – but he would have been run out of town on a rail had he be videotaped using the N word.

So it’s OK to ruin lives, so long as your not too rude about it? Well lt ain’t much – but it’s better than nothing. Sign me up.